It Could Be You
by Elenhin
Summary: Alec is being offered a chance to be more than second best, but does he want it?


Author's note: This is a one-shot I wrote to explore the relationship between Alec and James. I am intending to post a longer story featuring the two of them later, and this is partly to explore their different backgrounds first.

Alec is being offered a chance to be more than second best, but does he want it?

Very big thanks goes to Earendil Eldar for beta work.

Disclaimer: I do not own James Bond, Alec Trevelyan or any other James Bond related item or person. I have only borrowed the characters and will return them. Not even making any serious attempt at kidnapping Alec, and as I have gotten some special glue form Q, he shall appear utterly unharmed.

* * *

**_It Could Be You_**

or

_**TheBest Man For The Job**_

It was quite rude not to offer a fellow a chair, Alec decided to himself. After all, there were several empty ones. The least they could do was offer a tiered man a seat. He would not mind the chance to sit down at all. What only served to make it more rude was how they were perfectly aware of the fact that he could use sitting down for a moment.

He knew that they knew, and they knew, that he knew that they knew. It was a complicated way of thinking, but it was true.

They had been _reasoning_ with him for some time now. Reasoning included offers, insults, beatings, convincing methods of various kinds, and torture. The only thing they had not yet done, was show him a diagram.

He was just waiting for them to do that.

They wanted him to do two things, join them, and betray England. He was not about to do either one of them.

Still after doing their best to beat the living daylight out of him, the least they could do really was offering him a chance to sit down.

"Have you changed your mind, 006?" The villain asked.

Alec shook his head. "No, I'm still the same stubborn fool as I was a few beatings ago." He grinned, pretending he did not notice how his lip cracked and bled. "You, have you changed your mind?"

"About what?" The question was asked with a dry laugh, and with an accent that was an insult to the English language.

"About giving up." Alec sounded baffled that he would need to ask. "You stand no chance of succeeding, I really would advice you to surrender."

"I have the two most famous agents of England in my clutch, why would I need to surrender?" The fool asked.

"To have is one thing, to hold another." Alec grinned, this time truly amused. "You let us go now, and maybe when we blow your cosy little place to pieces, we won't kill you." He made a face as if he was pondering various results. "It's the best offer I can make you I'm afraid. But to be honest, you've not been the most gracious host."

The would-be-the-one-leader-of-the-world threw his head back and laughed. "You are lucky that I find your spirit amusing." He declared.

"You're lucky I'm a bit tied up at the moment." Alec declared. He knew he should have joined the boy scouts, according to what he had heard, they were good with knots. Maybe then he would be better at untying them. Not that it would help at the moment, steel manacles were a bother.

They laughed again, because they found his defiance amusing. They believed that it was all empty promises, but Alec did not believe in making those.

"Now tell me who you are? And double-ooh-six is not enough, I already know that. Tell me something I don't know." He raised a cudgel over his head, and Alec winced in sympathy with his ribs. He had a feeling they would not enjoy his answer.

"Playboy twin two." He stated.

"Playboy twin two?" The evil thing asked, slapping out some odd rhythm with the cudgel against his palm.

"Yes, you see, my friend is number one, so I did not score higher than number two." Alec admitted. "He was always better with women than me."

His interrogator paused even as he was about to strike. "Is that so?" He noted thoughtfully. "Very interesting number _two_." He sounded out the word two as if he thought it made Alec less than James. "So you say that he is number one, and you only second best to him."

"You could see it that way, I suppose." Alec admitted. Still waiting for the hammer to fall, or rather the cudgel to strike.

"I think, that I will see it that way." He grinned. "I think I will see it that way. How sad for you, to not be anything more than second, how very unfortunate for you."

"Why do you think so?" If he was going to strike, Alec would rather have it over and done with. Standing there and tapping it to his palm was kind of mean, it made him tense up at every move he made, at every change in his voice. No, he would much rather have it over with. Even if it hurt like hell.

"It just seems to me to be a shame." He grinned wolfishly. "Do you not think so."

"I think it's a shame that you are still talking." Alec admitted.

"Impertinent creature." The villain snapped, striking him across his face with the back of his hand.

Alec groaned, typical, he had expected the blow to fall over his ribs, not over his face. It was not fair to give him false expectations before striking. It was mean, and who had allowed them to pull tricks like that?

"Would you prefer if I didn't do that again?" He asked, touching the cudgel against the gash in Alec's lip."

"If it's all the same to you." Alec tried not to wince as he spoke.

"It's not, but I could be convinced."

Alec shook his head. "All this talk about convincing, why can't anyone these days just hold, some faith?"

"You seem to find this amusing, I wonder for how long?"

Okay this time it really was the cudgel, and it really was his ribs. If you had twelve of them to start with, did two broken mean you had fourteen? That would be one way to see it, no broken ones, but a few more smaller ones. If there was any small splinters it would be damned hard to count them.

"Not so amusing anymore?" The bastard asked.

"I wouldn't quit my day job for a career as a comedian just yet if I were you." Alec stated. Then he gasped, that made sixteen he supposed.

"Why do you settle for this, always second after your friend, when you could have so much more?" He demanded, his foul breath hot on Alec's face. It was disgusting, it made him want to gag. Actually, he would rather try for eighteen ribs than have that disgusting bastard breath in his face. He would rather have a sour rat do it. At least they were more polite.

"You're not making sense." He shook his head trying to clear it.

"Simple. Stay where you are, you will be beaten, you will suffer, and you will never get any recognition. Join with us, and the pain will stop, and you may become _the_ best. It would be the famous double-ooh-six, instead of double-ooh-seven. As it should have been, for really, are not you better than him?"

It was a trick Alec thought, they wanted him to feel jealously. It would not work.

"Me instead of him." He would have laughed, but that would have hurt. You did not laugh with broken ribs, you just did not. "No, you got that all wrong, he is the best one."

"You could be, do you not want to? Do you not want it to be you instead of him, to be him?"

"No." Alec stated firmly. "No, I do not want to be him, I am satisfied as it is. They got the best one for the job, and it wasn't me. I don't care. I wouldn't want it any other way than it is."

Alec closed his eyes as the cudgel was raised into the air. The nasty thing.

When they were done with him they dragged him back to the cell where James was.

"What did they do to you, Alec?" James swallowed as he took his friend in his arms. Alec's eyes were pain filled.

"Multiplied my ribs, then tried to make me an offer." Alec groaned.

"Multiplied?" James asked, worried that he no longer knew what he was saying.

"Yeah, I think I have twice as many now." Alec admitted. "They tried to make me switch sides. Offered me your place."

"What did you say?" James was curious, he knew Alec would never betray him, but what would he say.

"You're the famous James Bond, I'm not. Doesn't matter to me. They got the right man for the job there, I'm just happy to be along for the ride."

James laughed. "They underestimate you Alec." They underestimated how good someone would have to be to say that. "Now, what do you say we tear down this place."

"Sounds lovely." Alec grinned. James would know how, because he was the famous James Bond.

Sean Bean auditioned for the role of James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987). He later played Alec Trevelyan in Goldeneye (1995). There you have the joke in this little tale. Alec really could have been James there….

The End

This was yet another one shot, and I hope that you all enjoyed it. When I found that bit of information, I just could not let it pass without making a joke about it.


End file.
